Office Romance Continued

• No pillow talkLife can become sticky when one member of a couple is on the senior management team; is the PA to the managing director or is a member of the finance or human resources team.

  Co-workers and senior managers will frown on pillow talk that involves sensitive or commercially secret information.

• Life ‘outside’Dr John Armstrong, author of Conditions of Love – The Philosophy of Intimacy, advises couples to make a particular effort to talk about things other than work.

  “Something has brought couples together that is very, very specific – a project, a detested boss – so the romance could be very intense but it’s only about a little part of their lives when you consider their lives as a whole,” he says.

  “For love to survive, the relationship has to be very broadly based and it has to work in lots of ways,” he says.

  He says that someone attracted to a coworker because they want to “feel understood” could create an unrealistic expectation that everything he or she does will be understood.

  “It’s a very beautiful ideal but it doesn’t work in reality,” he says.

• Winners and losers“When people are in love they tend to think they are special and they might even feel slightly sorry for the rest of the world – other people are nice but they are not as wonderful as their partner,” says Dr Armstrong.

  As a result, co-workers can feel excluded. Or maybe all your gushing is just plain painful. The bottom line is ‘be aware’ of how you’re acting

• Tips for managersManagers risk being accused of discrimination or of intruding into the private life of their employees if they don’t tread carefully when tackling any behavior or work performance issue involving a couple.

  “Managers should role play how they propose handling the situation with the HR manager,” she says. “Even experienced HR people should tread carefully with this issue.”

By Kate Southam, Editor www.careerone.com.au

You can direct any specific job hunting or workplace question to editor@careerone.com.au